Preserving

It seems hard to believe, but not everyone will be able to do genealogy until they take their last breath. It’s important that we start planning for our genealogy retirement and ask ourselves, what are we going to do with our research when we’re done or no longer able to be involved? The hardest part […]

Let’s be brutal. Photos without stories are worthless. They are no better than the photos in picture frames you buy off the shelve with people you’ve never met and they probably didn’t know before the photo shoot. Here are six tips to give your photos value by recording the story the photographer captured. 1. BE […]

Following the success of Andy’s DNA After the Test eWorkshop, we’re pleased to release five on-demand lectures from Family History Fanatics. Follow the links (that are the webinar titles) to the Vimeo Store. 1. Blogging Your Family History Blogs are a great way to share your family legends and discoveries with your extended family. You might […]

Why is it that we overlook or ignore easy tasks? Is it because those easy tasks are too readily forgotten, despite how important they are? It’s easy to scan through your email inbox and quickly delete the unwanted material. Right? It seems simple enough and is a time-saving decluttering tip repeatedly shared in social […]

What enables easy sharing of your genealogical research, ensures backup of your discoveries, prepares for an emergency, and simplifies inheritance? If you guessed digitization, give yourself a pat on the back. In 2008, a massive flood that drowned parts of Cedar Rapids, Iowa impacted my friend. Before the waters submerged her neighborhood, she had time […]

Do you have trunks in attics full of document papers videos and audio cassette that you haven’t preserved into ditto format yet? Then now is the time to get the job done! But what if you don’t know how to do the digitization or the thought of a DIY project sends you screaming and headed […]

Preparing to interview a family member can be super exciting. But for many interviewers, they are uncertain what they want to ask the interviewee. Meanwhile, many interviewees are nervous about what you’re going to ask them and whether they are going to remember. Here are three ways you can put your interview we at ease and […]

Family History is meaningful when we preserve the perishable and share our stories. There will always be time to find a new relative to add to the tree (and often it takes considerable effort to do so), but saving and preserving our family history is my top priority. Here are 9 tasks that I do […]

What is the number one task to do in genealogy? It’s not tracing your family tree back to Adam & Eve. It’s not proving your lineage to a Revolutionary War ancestor. It involves your photos and whether they’ll be tossed into the trash. In 2012, my mother passed away. She lived in Texas and I […]

Interviewing relatives infuses genealogy with a wealth of stories and clues that are waiting to be harvested. However, not all interviews result in the type of information the interviewer had wanted when they coerced their relative into a painful audio recording ordeal. Okay, perhaps all the researcher had to do was ask but why did […]